As for the questions about the life restrictions, that's part of this program: these are going to be funded projects, and then at the end of the program, we're going to hopefully be handing them off to foundations, organizations, governmental organizations, or possibly even VCs for further support. Ideally, all of the products that come out of the labs will have a life of their own long after the summer is over and we're going to do everything in our power to ensure it. We want to figure out a process to bootstrap social enterprises from the ground up, and part of that is making it economically feasible for excellent people to take the jump.
All that said, we are totally open to remote Hackers In Residence. Our primary goal is building products that help. Our fellows are either in NYC or relocating, but for our engineering teams, remote work is fine.
Lets take a personal example: For the last 4 years my brother has worked on reducing recidivism rates in LA's skid row and has created a program which has gotten it to near zero in a small sample sets -- while I work in Silicon Valley trying to make computers reduce unstructured knowledge into products to sell as ads.
Most days I think I'd rather be him, and he rather be me -- but we can't find ways to merge technology and street-problems in a meaningful manner with the restrictions we have in life (his family, my student loans etc).
I say all this to illustrate -- to get to solving problems on the streets, we may need to solve a problem with even getting the right people together. The right people are often working because they need the money and real do-gooders are often trapped in a poverty cycle that ends up draining their contributions to the community.
Essentially good work feels unsustainable to the average educated producer like ourselves -- and we give up. How do you think you can help?